“Joy says I should start meditating,” I relay the advice my boss gave me earlier that day in our one-to-one.
“She has a point,” my partner agrees from my earpiece, his domicile for the past two years we’ve been dating long-distance. My father, who’s behind the wheel, notices we’ve gone from silly to serious talk and lowers the volume of the car radio so I can hear better.
“I find myself thinking about work all the time,” I continue. “I can’t stop.”
“One thing I’ve noticed about you is you don’t leave space for yourself. You always fill it with something: work, books, Netflix, friends, me. You have no headspace.”
I have no headspace. The second my partner said this, I realised I agreed with him wholeheartedly. I must make space.
That resolution, three years ago now, changed my life.
The key is to stop
The evening of that phone conversation with my partner, I downloaded the meditation app Headspace that my boss had recommended onto my phone. The following day, I began incorporating meditation into my daily routine. Two minutes at first, then five, then ten. Before long, a 20-minute session would pass in the blink of an eye, leaving me wanting more. Nowadays, though I no longer practice daily, meditation is still my go-to whenever I start finding it difficult to disconnect from work or worries. And it still does the trick, every time.
I owe meditation much for helping me find headspace these past three years. But my gratitude must also extend to another—perhaps even more important—habit. For three years now, my first response to every situation has been to stop—to, at least for a while, do nothing. When I begin to feel overwhelmed with work, I take a break. When my subtitles translation gig begins to stress me out, I skip a month. When a friend crosses a line one too many times, I stop inviting them out. When a book begins to bore me, I stop reading. When I’m stuck on a newsletter post, I stop writing.
Stopping in all these disparate situations—a few hours’ break, a night to sleep on it, a week to gain perspective—gives me the space to process my thoughts and feelings, and invariably I return to these situations armed with fresh insight and inspiration.
Before I made space an integral part of my life, I never stopped. Whatever the task, whatever the problem—my response was always to plough full-speed ahead. Rest was evil, stopping cowardly, and I must always be productive. No wonder I burned out regularly and changed jobs almost every year.
Fast-forward to today. For three years I’ve held the same job. For three years I’ve written this newsletter. And it’s because I know when to stop that I’ve been able to stay energised and motivated. I still get stressed—it’s part and parcel of life—but I no longer burn out. And as a result I’m able to stick with my tasks, my problems, my goals for far longer.
As it turns out, rest isn’t evil, stopping not cowardly, and constant productivity a sure road to ruin.
What I find in the space
I dip my toe in the mineral bath, then—finding the heat bearable, pleasant even—slowly lower myself until I’m submerged up to my chin in the heated mineral water that, according to the signage on the wall, possesses myriad healing qualities. I rest my head against the raised edge of the bath and close my eyes.
I wonder what dinner will be like today. My partner’s only met my friends once. Will conversation flow as it did last time? Is his voice going to hold? He’s only just recovering from a nasty sore throat. Should I post a photo of the dinner on my Instagram? Maybe I shouldn’t. Not every element of my life has to be on display. I should write about this in my newsletter though, this right here. A post about where your mind goes when you stop… I’ll call it, “Where does your mind go?” Or “wander”? Nah, “go” works better. I could start by describing this scene… Hey, that’s it! Maybe that could be my formula for Val Thinks—start by describing a scene before launching into an exposition of my thoughts. It’ll vary the format, I get to try my hand at a new style of writing, plus dialogue is fun… I open my eyes a smidge as I feel the water in the bath ripple. A woman is stepping in. Look at her. When will I have a flat tummy like that? Maybe in six months when I come back for another family visit. I’ve really got to get my eating in order…
Going to the onsen is my favourite space-making activity. Every time I’m in Bangkok, I try and spend a day there, a day to do absolutely nothing except gingerly stepping into and carefully hoisting myself out of a variety of hot and cold baths, a day of letting my mind take me wherever it wants to go—from conversations with friends to the thin line separating my private and public lives, from inventing a newsletter formula I didn’t know I needed to highlighting a body insecurity I didn’t realise I had.
But it’s not just idle thoughts and useful insights that I find in the space I make. When I do nothing for an afternoon, meditate for twenty minutes, spend a day at the onsen, I also come face to face with my anxieties, my worries, my deepest fears.
Will my most loyal subscribers stop reading my newsletter if my writing evolves into something they no longer enjoy? Do my readers actually stop to think like I want them to? Am I making a difference? Will I ever amass enough followers to convince a book agent to sign me on? Will I ever finish this memoir I’m writing? Worse, what if I do and it’s crap? What if one day I make a major slip-up at work and my boss fires me? How would I scrape together enough income to live on? What if I never realise my childhood dream of seeing my name credited as the subtitles translator on the big screen? What if my parents get into a horrific car accident and this is the last time I’ll ever see them? Should I visit more often? What if my partner dies too? What then?
The person I had been—until I resolved to “make space” three years ago—was terrified of this. I wanted so much not to hear these repressed thoughts, feel these unpleasant emotions that I did my damnedest to keep myself busy, to never stop.
But once I did stop, once I sat down and did nothing for two minutes as Andy from Headspace guided me through my very first meditation, I was surprised by how cathartic—even pleasant—it was.
In the space I’d so dreaded, I got for the first time to sit down with the unpleasant thoughts and emotions that plagued my three-year-ago self—my demons—rather than run away from them. And by the end of those two minutes, I’d uncovered a crucial truth: my demons weren’t the problem—my denial of them was.
It was only when I opened my eyes to them, as I’d just done, that I realised these demons were parts of me I must learn to live with if I was ever to find peace.
And so I stopped running. And sat with my demons. And in the space I made—sitting cross-legged on our couch, strolling down our dusty street, lying in that hot mineral bath—finally found my peace.
What do you think?
Space has been integral to living my good life. Time to find out if it’s also essential to yours:
How can you make space in your life?
Stop what you’re doing for a moment, take a long walk without music, maybe meditate for five minutes. See what difference it makes and share your thoughts—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this with someone who could use some quality time with their demons.
Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,
Val
Photo by Angelina Litvin on Unsplash
Hello Val, i read this time your writing from an ununsual spot not on my way to work but in a bedroom's hospital to face my worst freaking fears and demons, the hospital! I have to confess it' s the biggest nightmare from my perspective to be there but wierdly a part of me is still ? Maybe i want take care on my health.
One of my friend seems to work as you, she works a lot and her brain can't stop to think with endless thoughts even during the night. I think i will advice her to go at headspace and not to skip her hypnotherapist appointement. A good way to find some calming and answers here in France.
Thanks for your work and as always i can learn english the better way
Have a good day hoping you can understand my message.
Last thing i can't stop but asking what if someday you put an audio would it be different?
Im curious about Bangkok. Do you currently live in Thailand? I’d love to hear about the onsen. Is it pure mineral springs? (No chlorine) under Bangkok?